A husband and wife offer their easy-to-read collection of practical suggestions for an affordable retirement.
When Randy and Jane Kirk (he worked for the IRS for 25 years, and her 22-year career was with a large insurance firm) decided to retire in their 50s, they soon discovered their nest egg couldn’t sustain their lifestyle. They also found that many retirees are in even worse shape. Citing a 2013 study authored by Nari Rhee, a retirement specialist at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, the Kirks contend that in 2010, one-third of Americans ages 55 to 64 had no savings to finance their retirement. Not wanting to go back to work full time, the frugal twosome found ways to manage their underfunded retirement. Their smorgasbord of quick, friendly advice ranges from the startling, like living in a vehicle until better economic times, to the familiar, such as how to save money by cutting out bad habits like smoking. In this slim edition, the authors emphasize ways to reduce expenses (maybe it’s time to downsize to a smaller, cheaper house) and produce more income (investing in the stock market or starting a very small business, like mowing lawns). There are also day-to-day ideas for cutting financial corners; e.g., buy inexpensive eyeglasses through online companies like Zenni Optical. Doctors and hospitals will sometimes reduce the prices of medical procedures, say the Kirks, and they note the website Healthcare Blue Book to help determine fair market price. The authors propose beginning with a written personal assessment in which all retirement hopes and dreams are detailed and using a written budget with the help of an envelope system; for example, a predetermined amount of cash for groceries would be kept in one envelope, and no more is to be spent on groceries that week. Those who are truly broke may already be living many of these ideas; e.g., cooking cheaper meals from scratch instead of eating out. But for readers who are beginning to panic about their retirement years, the Kirks’ warm advice is comforting and practical.
Brief, common-sense survival tips for a more secure future.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0990943808
Page Count: 90
Publisher: Frugal Frog Enterprises, LLC
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Noted jazz and pop record producer Thiele offers a chatty autobiography. Aided by record-business colleague Golden, Thiele traces his career from his start as a ``pubescent, novice jazz record producer'' in the 1940s through the '50s, when he headed Coral, Dot, and Roulette Records, and the '60s, when he worked for ABC and ran the famous Impulse! jazz label. At Coral, Thiele championed the work of ``hillbilly'' singer Buddy Holly, although the only sessions he produced with Holly were marred by saccharine strings. The producer specialized in more mainstream popsters like the irrepressibly perky Teresa Brewer (who later became his fourth wife) and the bubble-machine muzak-meister Lawrence Welk. At Dot, Thiele was instrumental in recording Jack Kerouac's famous beat- generation ramblings to jazz accompaniment (recordings that Dot's president found ``pornographic''), while also overseeing a steady stream of pop hits. He then moved to the Mafia-controlled Roulette label, where he observed the ``silk-suited, pinky-ringed'' entourage who frequented the label's offices. Incredibly, however, Thiele remembers the famously hard-nosed Morris Levy, who ran the label and was eventually convicted of extortion, as ``one of the kindest, most warm-hearted, and classiest music men I have ever known.'' At ABC/Impulse!, Thiele oversaw the classic recordings of John Coltrane, although he is the first to admit that Coltrane essentially produced his own sessions. Like many producers of the day, Thiele participated in the ownership of publishing rights to some of the songs he recorded; he makes no apology for this practice, which he calls ``entirely appropriate and without any ethical conflicts.'' A pleasant, if not exactly riveting, memoir that will be of most interest to those with a thirst for cocktail-hour stories of the record biz. (25 halftones, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-508629-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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